by Abby Sher
I marched over to the host station to ask for Dara. She wasn’t working, though. I got a guy named Topher, who was one of our high school football prodigies until he’d gotten his third concussion last year. He couldn’t be near bright lights anymore and Emma said he tried to feel her up at a party with his eyes closed.
“What can I get you?” Topher asked.
I had no time for small talking. I cleared my throat so he knew I meant business. “Where’s the fish tank?”
“What fish tank?”
“The fish tank that was over here just a few days ago. It had a treasure chest, some pearls, and a very important lobster in it.”
“Ha!” Topher laughed. “Did you just say a very important lobster?”
“Shut up! Where is it?”
“I have no idea. Nobody orders lobster here anyway.”
“That’s not the point. Is Dara around? She knows what I’m talking about.”
Topher picked some wax out of his ear and started to walk away.
“Or Stephan,” I said, standing up taller. “Where is Stephan?”
“I dunno,” said Topher.
“What exactly do you know?” I pounced. “Do you know that by some counts there are over six hundred species of endangered crustaceans? Do you know that evolution started in the ocean and something like 80 percent of the different species on Earth live in the ocean but they won’t be able to for much longer if we keep dumping crap in there and spilling oil barges and catching fish just to stick them in tanks until we get sick of them?”
“I think you should leave,” said Topher. He did not look amused anymore.
I wanted to shine a flashlight through his concussed eyes up into his amygdala. “You killed him!” I said with flaring nostrils.
“What? Who?”
“Don. Juan. Crustaceo.”
“What the hell?! You need to leave. Now.” He started doing a little sidestep toward the door, shooing me with his tray.
“You should leave. Now.”
Which I knew made no sense, but I’d never felt this kind of rage before. Like a fever of hate was taking over my whole body and I could choke him with my bare hands. I hated his smug little face and his self-righteous indignation. I hated that he could dim the lights or close his eyes and it would all feel better. I hated him. I hated Stephan too, and Dara, Julian, Lowenstein, parts of Dr. Ganesh, Linda’s sweaters, Durvalumab, Pembrolizumab, and whoever first said, “Can I get a what what?” I hated extraterrestrials and Stephen Hawking and everyone who made eligibility requirements for drug trials just so they could get great results and publish them in thick medical journals that nobody read.
I stole as many jelly packets as I could and stormed out of the Unicorn. Past the spot where Don Juan had been. The same spot where nobody would know about him if they came in right now. Past the host station and potted plants and toothpick dispenser.
Once I was out, I kicked the door. Hard. Harder than I thought, actually. Hard enough to make a popping sound. The glass cracked. I watched in shock as sparkly tentacles shot out across the bottom pane.
This is not happening. This is not happening. This is not happening.
Only it was happening. I saw Topher’s head whip around through a window and then he was pointing at me to one of the dishwashers and started toward the door. I sucked in a huge breath and took off running. Through the parking lot, behind the Dumpster, along the wooded side of the golf course, and in and out of side streets. Running, running like I was in one of those bad convict movies where maybe he escapes this time but he can’t escape forever.
Running and ducking and hiding and unraveling.
Nobody was safe. Nothing lasted. Never, in the history of time, could we slow or stop ourselves from self-destruction.
Ebola
Lingering questions about Ebola outbreak:
How do I know if I have it?
What are we doing to stop it?
Can you look at this rash and please tell me I don’t have it?
Chapter 16
PINKY AND WIZZLE
I spent forty-five minutes hiding and sniveling in our rhododendrons while I listened for sirens. Our block was eerily quiet. The dark was too dark and I shivered even though it was mid-May. I could’ve knocked on someone’s door, I guess. But I wasn’t really close with any of our neighbors after I overpromised and underdelivered Girl Scout cookies three years before. My attempts at a door-to-door anti-fracking scavenger hunt didn’t make me very popular either. I’d never run from the law before. I wasn’t actually sure I was doing it now. The saddest part of this whole crime spree was that I’d enraged and lied to so many people in the past few days that I had no idea who would bail me out if needed. That made me feel even sorrier for myself.
I kept checking my phone as if it had forgotten how to tell time. There was no way I’d make it through a whole night crouched in the bushes without either self-harming or getting eaten alive by squirrels. At 11:18 (my birthday numbers) I decided to at least check if any of our doors were unlocked, even though I knew they weren’t. But it did make me circle my house and realize I could get into the bunker and go to sleep there.
“Thank you!” I whispered up at the sky, because whatever force was out there, it had spared me this once.
It was mildly exciting to open up one of the space blankets and fold myself into it on the floor. I ate three of my jam packets just to have something to do or taste besides this aching hollowness. Then I got jittery from all the sugar and had to distract myself by looking up facts on my phone about extraterrestrials, asteroids, Ebola outbreaks, and alternative water supplies until my battery died and my eyes started sagging.
When I woke up the next morning, Mom was sitting on the dirt floor next to me, stroking my hair. She acted like it was the most natural, cozy place to be—staring at the moon chart I’d drawn, singing the song she always sang to me before bed when I was little. It was about a little girl named Pinky and a horse named Wizzle. They went on lots of adventures together. I didn’t know why it took me sixteen years to realize it, but right then and there I knew that every time Mom sang it, wherever they traveled, they always came back home.
I shut my eyes quickly and tried to go back to sleep. Only my head was so sore and my bladder was about to explode.
“Sorry,” I whispered, tripping to the stack of chipped flowerpots I’d designated as the outhouse.
Mom just kept singing. When I was done, I dumped myself back onto the floor and curled into a lump.
“Mom?” I asked.
“Chicken?” she sang quietly.
I didn’t have much to say. I just wanted to make sure she was really here and this was actually happening, because the past twenty-four hours had been so surreal and horrible.
“Lost my house key,” I said. The fifth set of keys I’d lost in the past three years. Which usually led to a lecture from Mom about responsibility and trust. But things must’ve been bad because all she said was, “I figured.” She kept stroking my head while I bobbed in and out of sleep. Then at some point, she lay down on the floor next to me and we were looking up at the flaky ceiling together.
“I thought I was going crazy when all my canned chickpeas started disappearing,” she said, nudging me in the ribs.
“Sorry. When did you notice?”
“A few months ago, I guess.” Mom kissed my left hand. “Every bunker needs access to good hummus.” She laughed momentarily, propping us both up and making me take a sip from a bottle of warmish water she had.
Then her voice dropped an octave and she said, “At first, I didn’t know what you were doing. But Dad reminded me about your research on extinction. I’m not sure what kind of supplies you need, but if I can give you anything…”
Instead of finishing her sentence, she wrapped her body around mine and I smushed my cheek into her gray silk blouse. She’d gotten dressed up for the Bad News meeting just yesterday morning. We both had. As if we could put a sassy beret on the truth and ma
ke it a party.
Swoosh swoosh swoosh swoosh. I heard her heart working so determinedly. Without her ever asking, it just pumped mightily. This was all that kept us on Earth. This was all we had. This tiny valve, clenching and releasing, clenching and releasing.
I burrowed into her chest farther and started bleating. It was such an ugly noise. Whiny and off-key.
“Oh, my sweet Chicken,” Mom whispered into my hair. Her song was just scraps of words now, with long, wavering hums in between. And then she was moaning with me. I could feel her sorrow collecting in her lungs, hitching onto a little swell of breath and floating out in a low huuuuuuuuuuuh.
I hated her crying, but I was also so grateful to be collapsing together. There was no plan of attack anymore. There was no way to batten the hatches. There was this eye of the storm, where we sat. Just a moment of surrender, before the winds thrashed us again.
I buried my head in her armpit and said, “I did something bad. I mean, I did a lot of things bad, but one of them could be on a security camera.”
“Oh yeah?” Mom asked. She peeled me away from her a little to find my eyes. “Do tell,” she said.
I didn’t want to go on. But I also didn’t want to have any shards of yesterday wedged in my gut anymore. Linda’s sweaters and the shit-sandwich boys on the train were all dancing to alien saxophone music, expanding like jumbo shrimp monsters to the edges of my brain.
I took a stick and dug into the dirt floor with it while I confessed. “Well, first of all I sent some stupid, bad pictures to Dr. Ganesh and I didn’t know it was a hospital phone so he might be in big trouble. I used the emergency credit card to buy a gas mask and wine coolers and some water for an endangered elephant named Clara. But I can pay it back, I swear.” I felt the tears about to tip out and I didn’t stop them. I just wailed and ranted while Mom sat listening.
“And then I did more stupid, bad things with Dr. Ganesh and then the fish tank was gone and it’s not fair! They killed this beautiful lobster who had so much charisma and life and everything ahead of him. He could’ve had a family, you know? So I kicked the diner door, not even that hard but I guess hard enough to break the glass, which I can replace, but how much would that cost do you think? Two hundred? Two thousand? I can babysit every weekend. Three thousand?”
Mom shrugged. I don’t think she understood I was really asking for a price estimate.
“Do you think…?” I started. “Well, what do you think?”
“What do I think?” She sighed. “I think that’s a lot to digest. First of all, what were those photos you sent to Dr. Ganesh?”
I’d never been so grateful for a dead phone battery in my life. I described the Ambrosia-inspired photo shoot without mentioning Ambrosia herself and then told Mom about all my pathetic follow-up texts and the patient-advocate meeting Dr. Ganesh mentioned. Mom said “Oy” a lot under her breath, but besides that, she let me do all the talking.
“I really don’t want him to get in trouble and I told him I could come to the meeting and explain how it’s all my fault or at least write a note, but he said no. But maybe Dad could speak on his behalf? Or all of us could go in there together? They can’t fire him, can they? Or suspend his license?”
The more I sounded out the possibilities, the more I wanted to lock the bunker door and never emerge again. Mom was drawing on the floor with a stick too now, as if she could map out a plan.
“Please say something,” I begged her.
She put down the stick and cleared her throat. “Okay, my dear. It sounds to me like the best course of action is to let this go. I don’t know the hospital protocol on this type of matter, but professionally speaking, if he didn’t encourage it and you are not the one suggesting wrongdoing, he’s probably in the clear.”
“Okay,” I said, willing myself to breathe. I was chewing my bottom lip so hard it was throbbing.
“I think you know this by now, but it bears repeating,” Mom continued. “Posting any kind of compromising pictures is a really dangerous thing, Lenny.”
“I know.”
“I know you know. And if you haven’t already, you need to erase those.”
“Got it.”
“C’mere.” She pulled me back into her lap and started trying to tame my hair into some braidy updo. “It’s going to be okay,” she said. “First it’s going to be really, really shitty. But then—slowly, surely—we will make it through.” I nodded. “You have a lot of babysitting to do, huh?” She poked me in the side.
“I will. I swear. If I don’t go to jail for vandalism.”
“Bah!” Mom laughed. “My girl’s not going to jail. But we do have to go talk to the manager of the diner. In our spare time, right?” She touched one palm to her chest and the other to mine. “Whatever you know, know this. You have an amazing heart, sweet girl.”
I looked down at her hand, because I knew I couldn’t gaze at her face-on without dissolving again.
* * *
When we got inside a few minutes later, Emma’s backpack and duffel were emptied all over the den floor and it smelled like her rosemary conditioner, but she’d left a note about going out to get groceries. I felt oddly excited to see her hairbrush spilling out of her bag. I also wanted to sleep for a year before she came back and started grilling me with questions in typical Emma fashion. Mom said she had to make a few work calls to explain that she’d be taking some more time off and that I was welcome to the first shower. I stayed under that stream of scalding water until the fog was so thick in the bathroom I couldn’t see my towel. I put my face into the stream and willed it to wash everything away.
As I stepped out into the hall, the cool air slapped me awake. So did the cabinet doors slamming shut and the angry stomping.
“Dried seaweed? Fiber crackers? This is what you should feed housecats, not people,” Emma yelled. “Mom, you and Lenny need to be eating real food.”
Mom’s voice was much softer and mumbly. Something about not exactly having a lot of spare time to be Martha Stewart. Emma cut her off.
“I’m not talking about whipping up a roasted chicken with fingerling potatoes, Mom. I’m talking about fueling yourself. And is Lenny even taking lunch to school? This is not okay!”
I admired Emma’s ability to fight. She was the only one in our family who knew how to put up her dukes. She almost thrived on conflict. Which wasn’t so fun when I just wanted to hang out or go into town and instead she wanted to tell me what was wrong with my outfit or debate the new online music-sharing rules. But it was times like these that I felt very grateful for her fire.
“Go take your shower,” I heard her order Mom. “I’m making eggs and toast with butter and you’re going to eat it. We all are.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Mom said docilely. I got dressed quickly, waited for her to close her bathroom door, and then headed downstairs.
“What was that all about?” I asked Emma.
“Lenin!” Emma said. She rushed over while buttering a piece of toast and clinched me in an airtight hug. “SPF, SPF, SPF,” she growled. SPF was Emma’s term for shit piss fuck. It was only to be used for horrible events, which before now meant a missed concert or when Emma got caught drinking with her SAT tutor. Now we’d entered a whole new stratosphere of SPF-ness.
“Yeah, right?” I whispered back, getting a mouthful of her hair. I pulled away to get a better look at her. In the past two months she had definitely made some big changes. Her honey-colored mane was parted in the middle and had a turquoise streak on the left side. Her worn Rosie the Riveter T-shirt looked like it would split in half if she stretched her hands up.
“Are you like a D-cup all of a sudden?” I asked.
“E,” Emma said proudly. “From taking the pill.” She shimmied and hopped on one foot to show me how versatile her boobs were before shoving a piece of toast in my mouth. “Breakfast is served!” she hollered.
Emma and Mom were on one side of the kitchen table and I was on the other. Usually I had Dad next to me to m
ake it a little more even. That’s how we’d always sat. I had so many questions I wanted to ask that empty chair. Mom cleared her throat and nodded, as if she could hear my confusion.
“A lot to do today,” she said.
The toast was buttery and thick. The eggs salty and hot. Emma poured us each coffee and had even sliced up some fresh tomatoes. I couldn’t eat it fast enough, I was so hungry.
“I told Mom that you are no longer allowed to subsist on walnuts and sprouts,” Emma said, pointing an eggy fork at me. “This is just not an option. We need to be here and be strong for Dad.”
“It wasn’t intentional,” Mom said weakly. I looked at her plate, still piled high with eggs and three-quarters of a piece of toast.
“It doesn’t matter, Mom. You can’t starve yourself. You can’t do this to me and Lenny.” Emma twisted her hair back into a bun and stared at Mom’s plate defiantly. Mom ate with her head bowed. I forgot too often that she was needy and scared too.
“How long are you staying?” I asked Emma.
“As long as … Well, that’s what I wanted to ask you guys,” she answered. “Is anyone giving us a timeline?”
Mom and I shrugged in sync. Then I added, “Dr. Ganesh said between a few weeks and a few months. He used the words actively dying.”
“What about Lowenfeld?” Emma asked.
“Lowenstein,” I corrected, “is a putz.”
We all went back to eating until there was literally nothing left. Mom pushed back her now-empty plate and said, “That was delicious, Emma, thank you. Now I need to ask you both a question and I don’t want you to feel pressured to answer right away. I even made little ballots so you could write about your feelings and tell me truly your thoughts.”
She passed out scraps of paper that I could tell from the other side were once an electricity bill. Then she explained that Dad had a choice. He could be transferred to a hospice in the Bronx or he could come home. Both options had their plusses and minuses. The hospice staff was really lovely—she’d spoken to them already and they were very skilled with end-of-life patients. Plus, they had planned activities, social workers, pain management.
